The remains of Australia’s most notorious bushranger, Ned Kelly, will be laid
to rest beside his mother, 133 years after he died.

The funeral will deliver the outlaw his final wish — to receive a proper burial. He will be buried in an unmarked grave to prevent it becoming a tourist attraction.

Kelly, who became a symbol of defiance against the landed gentry, was hanged and decapitated in November 1880 after a shoot-out with police. His headless, bullet-ridden remains were exhumed from a mass grave in 2009 and identified the following year via DNA testing.

The remains will be buried on Sunday at a private service for Kelly’s family at a small churchyard cemetery in the outback area he roamed as an outlaw. A separate public service will be conducted by the Catholic church in the town of Wangaratta, about 140 miles north-west of Melbourne.

The private funeral will be conducted in the town of Greta, near Glenrowan, the scene of his final gun battle with police, which he survived due to his famous home-made suit of armour and a helmet.

“Our aim is to give Ned a dignified funeral, like any family would want to,” Paul Griffiths, the great nephew of Ned Kelly, told The Age.

Kelly’s remains were recovered at the urging of his numerous descendants, who insisted they were not seeking to glorify the outlaw. The family received an exhumation license last August from Victoria’s state government which gave them control of the remains.

The outlaw’s great grandniece, Joanne Griffiths, said the burial would be “difficult and painful” for the family.

“This is no different from any family burying a loved one and we just ask people to give us the respect to bury him with some privacy and dignity,” she told ABC News.

“We have waited a long time to bury our beloved family member. He wished to be buried in consecrated grounds. Unfortunately, that did not happen for Edward.”

Kelly, born to a family of Irish migrants, was hanged for killing three policemen but became something of a folk hero for his resistance to the colony’s wealthy elite.

His three accomplices, including his younger brother Dan, were killed in a nine-and-a-half hour showdown at Glenrowan, ending an 18-month campaign that saw the so-called Kelly Gang become heroes for stealing from banks in country towns.

When they were confronted by police, there was an £8,000 bounty for the capture of the gang – the largest reward ever offered in the British Empire at the time.

Kelly was wounded in the Glenrowan shoot-out and swiftly tried and sentenced to death. He was executed at 10am at Old Melbourne Gaol on November 11 1880; his last words were said to be “Such is life”.

Kelly’s iconic status has endured and he has been played in film by Mick Jagger and Heath Ledger and depicted in artworks and books including Sidney Nolan’s famous paintings and novelist Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang.

Ms Griffiths said the family hoped the unmarked grave would allow the bushranger to rest in peace but it would be impossible to keep away all tourists.

“At least it may give him some peace,” she said. “We won’t have people doing silly things.”

Kelly will be buried beside the grave of his mother Ellen, who herself was in prison at the time of his death for attacking a constable with a spade after he tried to arrest one of her sons.

The location of Kelly’s skull, which was stolen from a display case at Old Melbourne Gaol in 1978, remains a mystery. In recent years, a witch in New Zealand and a farmer in Western Australia have both claimed to have the skull, though neither has been confirmed.